MiketheMechanic
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- Joined
- Dec 7, 2004
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- 101
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Hi all. With some extra time at home due to COVID, I'm tackling a project that has been outstanding for 15 years.
I have over 50 VHS tapes to transfer to digital before the tapes are lost to time.
The recordings are 99% PAL and a mixture of camcorder home movies on VHS-C and recordings on VHS from TV from the late 80s and early 90s.
I want to transfer them to digital and keep the highest possible quality.
I'm not bothered about burning each tape to DVD or Blu-Ray, I just want to save in a solid reliable video format on a Hard Drive.
Most likely these will be shared YouTube, or viewed on an computer or on TV via a memory stick at a later stage.
For really special home movies, I may do some editing in the future. So I want a solid digital capture to work with.
I attempted to start this project around 3 years ago and experimented with the following setups.
1. A good quality Panasonic 4-head VCR. Does a reasonably good job playing the tapes cleanly when viewed on a monitor.
I am taking the output from this VCR via a S-video cable and red and white RCA phono for audio to the next stage.
2a. Capture Device: A TOTMC USB 2.0 Video capture device dongle. This is an EasyCAP type device - cheap and cheerful.
It is running ArcSoft ShowBiz 3.5.15 software on Win 10 on my PC.
Pros:
You can get up and running quickly. Press play on the VCR, and hit Capture on the ArcSoftware, then when finished, publish to MPEG2 format video.
Cons:
1. Quality isn't great - seems to be a lot of loss and noise in the conversion, even applying the various filters.
2. The software is ancient and a bit clunky. Is there a better software package that works with these EasyCAP type of dongles?
3. MPEG2 isn't ideal - would prefer AVI or uncompressed video format options.
I also tried a different capture method.
2b: Capture Device: A Sony RDR-HX525 DVD Recorder with HDD.
I feed the output of the VCR into the recorder and record to the HDD.
Then burn from the HDD to a DVD-R to get a digital video file.
Pros:
Better quality than the EasyCAP method - still hope there's a better quality method though.
Cons:
1. Slow and time consuming. Essentially an extra step in the process in burning and finalizing the DVD-R from the internal HDD.
Then ripping the digital .vob file from the DVD back to the PC.
I tried to extract the files directly from the HDD on the recorder by removing it from the recorder, but the HDD was not in a format I could read on a PC.
Are there better methods of capture?
I have read about people using Mini DV Camcorders, with AV in passing through to Firewire and on to a PC.
Is this a better method? If so, what models of Mini DV Camcorders have a good ADC converter? And what software is needed on the PC?
Are other DVD Recorders better at the ADC conversion and more user friendly than the Sony unit I have?
I have also read about Canopus ADVC units? Are they recommended - if so, which one?
Finally, I could buy a Video Capture Card for my PC - is this a better method - if so, which one?
Thanks in advance - always brilliant advice on AVF,
Mike
I have over 50 VHS tapes to transfer to digital before the tapes are lost to time.
The recordings are 99% PAL and a mixture of camcorder home movies on VHS-C and recordings on VHS from TV from the late 80s and early 90s.
I want to transfer them to digital and keep the highest possible quality.
I'm not bothered about burning each tape to DVD or Blu-Ray, I just want to save in a solid reliable video format on a Hard Drive.
Most likely these will be shared YouTube, or viewed on an computer or on TV via a memory stick at a later stage.
For really special home movies, I may do some editing in the future. So I want a solid digital capture to work with.
I attempted to start this project around 3 years ago and experimented with the following setups.
1. A good quality Panasonic 4-head VCR. Does a reasonably good job playing the tapes cleanly when viewed on a monitor.
I am taking the output from this VCR via a S-video cable and red and white RCA phono for audio to the next stage.
2a. Capture Device: A TOTMC USB 2.0 Video capture device dongle. This is an EasyCAP type device - cheap and cheerful.
It is running ArcSoft ShowBiz 3.5.15 software on Win 10 on my PC.
Pros:
You can get up and running quickly. Press play on the VCR, and hit Capture on the ArcSoftware, then when finished, publish to MPEG2 format video.
Cons:
1. Quality isn't great - seems to be a lot of loss and noise in the conversion, even applying the various filters.
2. The software is ancient and a bit clunky. Is there a better software package that works with these EasyCAP type of dongles?
3. MPEG2 isn't ideal - would prefer AVI or uncompressed video format options.
I also tried a different capture method.
2b: Capture Device: A Sony RDR-HX525 DVD Recorder with HDD.
I feed the output of the VCR into the recorder and record to the HDD.
Then burn from the HDD to a DVD-R to get a digital video file.
Pros:
Better quality than the EasyCAP method - still hope there's a better quality method though.
Cons:
1. Slow and time consuming. Essentially an extra step in the process in burning and finalizing the DVD-R from the internal HDD.
Then ripping the digital .vob file from the DVD back to the PC.
I tried to extract the files directly from the HDD on the recorder by removing it from the recorder, but the HDD was not in a format I could read on a PC.
Are there better methods of capture?
I have read about people using Mini DV Camcorders, with AV in passing through to Firewire and on to a PC.
Is this a better method? If so, what models of Mini DV Camcorders have a good ADC converter? And what software is needed on the PC?
Are other DVD Recorders better at the ADC conversion and more user friendly than the Sony unit I have?
I have also read about Canopus ADVC units? Are they recommended - if so, which one?
Finally, I could buy a Video Capture Card for my PC - is this a better method - if so, which one?
Thanks in advance - always brilliant advice on AVF,
Mike